On 7/26/2012 12:37 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Swingman wrote:


I doubt that ... most of those tract and custom plan houses built in
the fifties to mid sixties were well built with a skilled labor pool,
if a bit shy or room sizes and ammenities, and much of the framing
lumber was old growth and higher quality than today's plantation
grown material.

Having been around in that era just as you - I will take exception with that
statement. Maybe it's different in Texas (everything seems to be...), but
up here, no tract home was ever considered to be well built by skilled
labor. Shortcuts were the order of the day. Lumber was the cheapest
available - though even that was agreeably better than what we have today.
That said - if those guys had access to today's junk, they would have used
it. Framing took every shortcut that was known at the time. For anyone to
suggest that houses like that were mass produced adhered to some better
standard is either stupid or fooling themselves.

Generally speaking it was in the 70's that developers/builders started
focusing on a less expensive to build product, cutting corners on
foundations, paint, siding, and wiring, and the labor pool had
certainly become less skilled.


Maybe in Texas...



Definitely in Texas.
And everywhere else as well.
That does not mean that ALL houses built during that period were done
that way. But a substantial portion were.
I know because I was shopping for a house for the last couple of years.

Broken slabs were common from that time frame.
(and still asking over $100k)